Reafons against depending on Setons to prevent Contagion probably taught him-that that man is himfelf a hoft. 3. But, laftly, it is an artifice unworthy of Dr. H. to afcribe to all Dr. P's friends, thefe particular opinions, which he had, previously, been at fuch pains to render odious. Dr. H. muft know that many who agree with Dr. P. in his ideas of the Divine Unity, do not efpoufe his fentiments on Materialifm, Infpiration, or the Miraculous Conception. He muft know that there is no necessary connection between these things. A man would be much mistaken, who fhould conclude, that all Dr. H's brethren in the Church were of one mind, though they have fubfcribed XXXIX Articles, for the avoiding diverfity of opinions. And the fuppofition is much more abfurd, when applied to a Diffenter, who has always alfumed to himfelf, and recommended to others, the most unbounded freedom of fentiment. A writer, on the other fide, might as well attribute to every Unitarian, all the virtues which adorn Dr. P's private character, in order to magnify the credit of his party, as Dr. H. hath done all his opinions in order to deprefs them. Yours, &c. MR. URBAN, T. SEARCH. March 3. YOUR correfpondent who figns himfelf Veremond in the Magazine for 1784, p. 741, having defired fome opinion relative to the fuccefs that might. be expected from the application of perpetual blifters, or fetons, in order to prevent or expel morbific contagion; I beg leave, through the channel of your Mifcellany, to offer a few obfervations on the hints he has offered, fubmitting them with all deference to the correction of your medical readers. The experi ment, no doubt, is a fimple one, and fuch as every perfon would embrace, provided a fecurity could thereby be obtained; but proof must be first adduced, and this corroborated by the teftimony of many who have experienced its good effects. It is true that our conftitutions have a natural propenfity to throw off fome particular and fpecific contagions, fuch as the fmall-pox, meafles, &c. but what effort does nature make to expel the poifon of a mad-dog, or the venereal virus? If the was equally regular in her method of cure in every conftitution, and in every difeafe, we might then, from analogy, imitate the procefs with undoubted fuccefs. But fuppofe, according to Veremond, that the experiment was tried in 223 the manner he recommends, and that the criminal efcaped the contagion, even then we have only a negative proof of its utility; for furely no one would venture to affert, that the application of an issue was a certain preventative from infection, because it had been made on one perfon, and that perfon had escaped the contagion! It is well known that morbific miafmata will not always attack, and alfo, that many conftitutions are proof againft their affaults; there must be a pre-difpofition in the habit to receive the infection: this is well known from the circumftance of the variolous matter being often introduced into fome conftitutions, yet will never produce the difcafe. According to the theory of modern phyfiologifts, there is nothing can, with greater certainty, pre-difpofe the habit to receive contagion, than the reducing that habit to a state of debility; and will not an illue, in great meafure, contribute to induce that debility? It is allowed, that fome fpecific conta gions act first on the part to which they were primarily applied. The variolous poiion, and the poifon of the mad-dog, are proofs of this. Of the latter, thank Heaven! we have not fuch certain evidence as of the former; but there are cafes recorded which render it highly probable, infomuch, that the prefent practice of treating wounds, made by thofe animals, is entirely founded on that opinion. But as, in common, we have no proof of the habit having received any infection, till (I fear) it is too late for prophylactics, fo, of course, our methods of prevention can never be founded on a folid basis; for, if we confider the various conftitutions, pre-difpofitions, and temperaments of different perfons, we muft confefs, that the fame mode of treatment, indifcriminately made use of, can never properly be applicable to all. If it fhould be thought expedient to try the experiment which Veremond propoles, I would recommend it to be done thus: let half-a-dozen criminals be ex pofed to the infection; let the difeafe be ftrongly marked upon them before the iffue is made; if then a ceffation of fymptoms shall enfue, and they all recover without any other means, there will be a ftrong prefumption that the "infection, after having entered the juices of the body," has been expelled; but, as a prophylactic, I am of opinion that it can be of no fervice. Yours, &c. CHIRURGUS. Mr. 224 Powerful Reafans against Playhouse in Goodinan's Fields. Mr. URBAN, March 4. Tis with much concern that I fee day after day the papers in general (not withstanding the worthy and refpectable member for the county of Middlefex's fpeech at the quarter feflions against the ticenfing of more places of public amufement) teeming with encomiums upon a place now erecting in Goodmans-fields for the exhibition of drolls or plays, or fome fimilar entertainment; and, upon enquiry, I find it to be fanctioned by Lord Cornwallis (as it is faid), and by the juftices under his appointment of the Tower Hamlets. I beg that the public may be informed if this is the fact. And, as the cenfure has gone forth against thofe very refpectable names, the juftices of that divifion, as parties interested, and fubfcribers to the intended inftitution, I further beg, that a lift may be made out of the names of fuch fubfcribers (for their clearance and credit fake), and laid before the juftices of the county at their next quarter feffions, in order that they (the country juftices) may be fully informed of the merits of the application. -I mention this, to undeceive fome, who may be induced to believe that decifion, or opinion, of the juftices of that, or any other diftrict, may be final in its operation; when it is well known, that not only the fpirit, but the words of the act of parliament, are diametrically oppofite; for no decifion, or opinion, or concurrence, can be conclufive, till it has obtained the fiat of the juftices at large of the county, when affembled at their quarter feffions. It is needlefs for me here to defcant on the multifarious mifchiefs which will flow from fuch a polluted fpring. Permit me only to mention one, and afk a queftion-Could any of the maritime trades upon the bank of the river Thames, in tiine of war, when government has fo much depending upon them, guide and comptrol their labouring men, with fuch a temptation at their door? I will not anticipate, but expect, an anfwer from that quarter. I call upon the churchmen too to look at this: and when I mention churchmen, the names of Mayo and Markham appear-fuch names for refpectability, as I may venture to challenge their profeifion to equal. And can they fit filent, and be lookers-on, whilft fuch lurking enormous mifchiefs are hatching? Forbid it, religion! Lord Cornwallis's name muft furely have been used without his permiffion; or fome egregious, falfe mis-statement of this bufinefs must have reached his ears. I know him well: he harbours not a wifh but for his country's good, and the welfare and happiness of every individual in it. Let this fimple fcrawl only come before him, and mark his conduct. This is no trivial object; it involves in it the ruin and destruction of thoufands. The property of every man in the vicinity will be affected; and his refentment, when he fees his fituation, ought to be roufed. It cannot be imagined, that any one in the commission of the peace, or any fet of men in that capacity, can poffibly be fo abandonedly depraved, as to with for the maturing of fuch establishment, fo that they might be locally benefited, to the detriment and abfolute destruction of their neighbours. To be fure, they have before them an example of a place, or public office, between the theatres-royal; but that has been long eftablished with repute, though it were even now to be wished that there was lefs caufe for its existence. I fhall again, if it is found neceffary, trouble you upon this fubject; and thall point my next addrefs at their Worships of a certain divifion, with fome few strictures upon the nature of rendering justice in a private way. I am, till the mutability of things change my name, BONI HOMINIS AGER. Mr. URBAN, Lincoln's Inn, March 9. F you think the following worthy of a place in your excellent Mifcellany, you' will oblige me by inferting it. Yours, WILL. MUCHALL. I have confidered the cafe which appeared in your laft Magazine, refpecting the appointment of chaplains by Ro man Catholic peers; and am of opinion, that noblemen of that perfuafion are within the exprefs letter of the 15th feetion of the old ftatute of 21 Hen. VIII. cap. 13, the words of which are, "Every marquis and earl may have five chap lains, whereof every one fhall and may purchase licence and difpenfation, and take, receive, and have, two parfonages or benefices with cure of fouls." I likewife think that Popish peers are within the intent and meaning of the above claufe, from the circumftance of Popery being the prevailing religion of the times when the ftatute was made. As to the difabling statutes which now exist against the Papifts, I cannot find one that can be confidered as at all affecting this privilege. If then the letter and intent of the act of. Remarks on the Controverfy between Dr. Priestley and Dr. Horfley. 225 of Henry give Roman Catholic peers a power of appointing chaplains, it follows, that they may (if they chufe) nominate Proteftant clergymen of the church of England; for none but men of that de fcription, according to the laws of the land, are, by virtue of a difpenfation, entitled to hold two parfonages with cure of fouls; and 1 think, that from a Proteftant chaplain to a Popish peer no difpenfation can be with-held. N. B. This cafe has never received a determination in a court of judicature: There is not a fingle dictum in the books about it. Meddle not with the famous dispute between the ingenious Dr. Priestley and his antagonists. I am content, like you, to be a humble fpectator of the combatants, and to admire their skill and dexterity at a diftance. Dr. Priestley hath made a retreat only to come forward with accumulated force into the field: and, if truth be of his fide, I heartily with him fuccefs. At prefent, I acknowledge myself to be in a state of fufpence; and I am one among many, who, with the Bishop of Llandaff, is waiting with anxious curiofity for Dr. Prieftley's promifed work. The eyes of orthodox and heretics are on him: the former, to find out errors, and mistakes, and mifreprefentations; and the latter, to fee him triumphing over his enemies, and confirming the caufe of rational religion. I have attended to every part of the late controverfy with as much impartiality and exactnefs as I poffibly could: for I was biaffed by no fyftem, and was not interested in favour of either of the parties. When the battery was firft opened against the Hiflory of the Corruptions of Chriflianity in the Monthly Review, I was, like thousands befides, ftruck with fome degree of aftonishment. Firft, the attack on Dr. Priestley in a Journal always fuppofed to be in the intereft of his party, and under the direction of his moft intimate friends, was totally unex pected; and therefore alarmed fome, vexed others, and furprized every body. Secondly, the charges of falfe tranfla tion, mistake, and mifreprefentation, were fo well proved, that molt perfons were aftonished that Dr. Priestley thould have laid himself fo open to cenfure and refutation. The attack involved in it GENT. MAG. March, 1786. fomething of more concern to Dr. Priestley than the credit of his learning, or his acutenefs; and I confefs I was staggered. I followed the Reviewer ftep by step, compared the paffages in difpute with the original works in which they are found, and could not help thinking that the critic was in the right. I read Dr. Priestley's Reply, and alfo the Vindication of him by a learned and ingenious friend; and afterwards the review of both thofe pamphlets. Through the whole I felt myfelf very indifferent as to the iffue; but wanted to fee the truth fairly made out; I did not care by whom. I thought the Reviewer made good his feveral charges; and I found almost every man of learning with whom I converfed of the fame opinion. Dr. Priestley wrote like a man that was hurt and irritated; and appeared to me to feel himself on very infecure ground. Hence, where he ought to have ftuck to plain facts, he wandered about in the fairy land of conjecture and hypothefis, and made his own prefumptions ftand in the place of direct and specific teftimony. I have read all Dr. Horfley's pamphlets, and all Dr. Priestley's letters in anfwer to the Archdeacon. There is one thing ftruck me very much; and the manner in which Dr. Priestley managed the bufinefs hath not increased the efteem which I have long been taught to have of that gentleman's candour. I beg leave to mention fome particulars. When Dr. Priestley, published his Reply to the Review, he appealed to a paffage in Jerom's Epifle to Auguftine, to prove the identity of the Nazarenes and Ebionites; but he did not produce the pailage, which was the least thing he could have done-what he omitted, the Reviewer performed. The vigilant critic having examined the paffage at large in the original, difcovered that it made directly against Dr. Prieft!cy. He, therefore, produced it at full Tength, and gave a literal tranflation of it. I thought (and I have been ufed to Latin for a length of time) that the tranflation very accurately expreffed the meaning of Jerom; but was at a lofs to account for Dr. Priestley's appealing to fuch a paffage, even by the moft diftant reference. I thought he had better have kept it wholly out of fight. I conjectured one thing, and then another. At last Dr. Priestley put an end to fruitlefs conjecture, by tranflating it himself in his ap pendix 226 Remarks on the Controverfy between Dr. Priestley and Dr. Horfley. pendix to the firft feries of letters to Dr. Horfley Here he accufes the Reviewers with an inaccuracy; and tranflates quid dicam de Ebionitis?" WHAT SHALL I fay of the Ebionites >" This cleared up the whole myftery at once; and, as this tranflation totally altered the meaning of this paffage, I was not furprized that he fhould refer to it as a teftimony in his favour. But I was greatly furprized that a man, who had the leaft acquaintance with the Latin tongue, could poffibly make the miftake that he did. Nor was his tranflation only wrong as to the grammatical conftruction; but, as the critic in the Review rightly obferved, it was manifeftly in confiftent with the fenfe and fpirit of the pallage. This was proved very much at large by the Reviewer of the Doctor's appendix and the whole paffage was brought forward, and its general meaning, in connection with the context, very accurately determined. The review of this laft publication of Dr. Pricftley produced a letter from the Doctor, perfonally addrelled to the Rev. Mr. Badcock.In this letter, the charge of mifreprefenting Juftin Martyr and Tertullian was particularly confidered; but, inftead of replying to the critic's obfervations on the paflage in Jerom, Dr. Priefiley briefly fays, that he is ready to difpute the point with Dr. Horley, fuppofing he fhould give the fame interpretation of it that Mr. Badcock had given in the Review. Dr. Hoifley took Mr. Badcock's part, and expreffed his contempt for Dr. Priefley's knowledge of Greek and Latin in moft mortifying language; and particularly inftances this very pallage. Mr. Badcock, in his letter to Br. Priestley, confiders the manner in which he had put it off, as a certain indication that he felt himfelf on bad ground, and wished to hear no more of it. But Dr. Prieffley, in his fecond feries of letters to the learned Archdeacon, profeties himself to be perfuaded fill of the accuracy of his tranflation of quid dicam: and what aftonifhed me greatly, was his faying, "that he was fupported by the first claffical authority in the kingdom." What can he mean? whom can he have in his eye? If Dr. Priestley afferts it, I must be lieve him; but I could not have imagined that he could produce a fiagle perfon in England, of any claffical note, who would give his name to the public as authorizing his tranflation. As I was lately reading work of Dr. Chapman, intituled, Primitive Antiquity, p. 11, I was truck with a poftfcript, containing remarks on this very paffage of Jerom. It was written on purpose to vindicate that learned father from fome reflections thrown on him by Mofheim in his tract against Toland's NA ZARENUS. The Socinians have, I find, long built on this paffage; for in it is the following claufe: propter hoc folum à patribus anathematizati funt quod legis ceremonias Chrifti evangelio mifcuerunt. This very claufe hath been lately adduced by Dr. Priestley, to prove from the teftimony of Jerom, that the Ebionites were only" confidered as heretics on account of their fuperftitious attachment to the law of Mofes. The fame thing had been said before; but the fact was proved to be far otherwife by the moft clear and ample evidence. Motheim, in his answer to Toland, proves inconteftably, that the Ebionites and Corinthians were accounted heretics on other accounts, and therefore charges Jerom with prevarication. The great ecclefiaftica! hiftorian knew the Socinians to have been effentially wrong in their reprefentations of antiquity: but, in expofing their accounts, lie pretty feverely lafhes the venerable father for giving them an occafion to mifreprefent antient facts. But I will transcribe what Dr. Chapman hath written on this fubject. "This paffage [propter hoc SOLUM, &c.] feemed at first fight to clash with the accounts which other ecclefiaftical writers had given of Cerinthus and Ebion, who are charged hy them with other erroneous doctrines befides the obfervance of legal ceremonies. Mofheim who was labouring to prove the innocence of the Nazarenes in comparison of the Ebioniles, is highly difpleafed with Jerom for making no difference between them, and accufes him of fraud and prevarication, purely to ferve his turn againft St. Auguftine. But all this was a falfe alarm againft Jerom, and proceeded from nothing elfe but a misinterpretation of the word folum. For Jerom did not ufe it, as Motheim underflood him, in an exclusive, but only a diftinctive sense; that is, he did not mean to affert, that the Ebionites and Corinthians were condemned for no other crime; but only that they were condemned for this alone, confidered Priestley and Horley-Summary of Proceedings in Parliament. 227 confidered by itself, and separate from of great importance. He confidered it Thus, Mr. Badcock is not only fupported in his reprefentation of this paffage by grammatical conftruction, and by the fpirit and fenfe of the context, but by the authority of men of eminent learning and critical fagacity. I with Dr. Priestley to confider the matter afresh. The paffage is certainly I fhall, however, wait the event, for Dr. Priefiey muft fay fomething on the fubject; but I am at a lofs to conjecture what it will be. I think he muft, by this time, have learnt fome important leffons of caution; and it is perfectly right that an hiftorian, efpecially when the fubject is of confequence to religion, fhould write with the eye of criticifm always upon him; and as a man, who if he miftaks or mifreprefents his facts or his authorities, must for att these things be brought into judgement. CAUTUS OXON. SUMMARY OF PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT, SESS. II. Debates in the prefent Seffion of Parlia ment, continued from p. 170. MR. Gourtenay proceeded. He con tended that the precedents adduced by the hon. gent. [Mr. Steele] were only fo many proofs, that deviations had been made from the general rule; but what were thofe proofs without the reasons that had occafioned them? He entered fully into the impropriety of the whole day's proceeding, particularly by introducing the army before the navy eftimates, by which an unfair advantage had been taken, and an intended propofition for the reduction of 2000 feamen precluded, as it might have been urged, that a reduction in the army would have been more proper. He reprobated the conduct of the Minifter on the fubject of the militia, who had acted, with his ufual duplicity, by admitting the principle, but rejecting the conclufion. He requested the Speaker to put an end to the debate, by declaring the ufage. The Speaker only repeated what he had before faid, that he looked on the proceeding as informal. The gallery was then cleared, and a divifion was expected; but the question for the Speaker's leaving the chair was agreed to, and the estimates voted without further debate. Friday, Feb. 10. The report of the army eftimates was brought up; and Mr. Steele produced more precedents. Mr. Sheridan interrupted him as out of order, there being no queftion before the Houfe. Mr. Steele juftified, as what he had to propofe was only a continuation of the adjourned debate of the preceding Friday. He infifted, that the precedents he had to cite were proper and fully in point. Mr. Sheridan contended, that his objection was fill in force; for whatever precedents there might be for the order of Wednesday (fee p. 168), he was fure there were none for the debate of this day. Mr. Steele perfifted; and produced feveral precedents from the Journals, of the cftimates in queftion being voted, after lying on the table, fome three,, four, five, and fome fix days; and, inftead of one swallow, he faid, he had found many. See p. 169. Mr. Courtenay, on the learned gentleman's remark of the preceding Friday, that he had copied Mr. Sheridan's arguments in coarse and clumfy language, told a ftory of Dennis the critic, who having invented a new kind of playhoufe thunder, for a play of his that was damned, was fo jealous of his property, that, on hearing a hoarie coarte ratting |